Opening Bands: Lucas Reynolds
Band Links: link

Coming off a co-headlining tour with Matt Nathanson, Carbon Leaf were back in town for a headlining tour in support of their latest album “Love Loss Hope Repeat, and I finally was able to check them out. I was sure pleased to have caught them because they were very impressive. Hailing from Virginia, the band is hard to describe. I guess they are a rock band with Irish influences, especially their older records.

We hit some traffic on the way down, but nothing serious despite being a Saturday Night show. I got lost in Chinatown and hit some traffic so of course I couldn’t find where the hell I was going. I had to call Bryan to figure where to go and luckily I wasn’t too far off. We got to the show and the band didn’t even arrive yet. Apparently, they had van trouble and nearly showed up around 9pm.

Opening the show was Lucas Reynolds, formerly of Blue Merle, who was there to perform songs as a solo artist and his music was well received. I thought he had a good voice but wasn’t for me. I thought he was interesting though. He said he spent four months out in a tent to write new songs and had 130 to choose from. Yikes, talk about a lot of time on his hands.

The band finally came on around 10:30pm or so and had to start off the show by doing an impromptu sound check while starting their first song “Changeless.” I thought it went off without a hitch and it seemed like a nice transition into the set. The crowd was ready for the band at this point and certainly were not disappointed with the show. As Carbon Leaf mentioned this was their best turnout for a headline show so it was even more worth it to them to rock out since they had car troubles all day. After Changeless they quickly went into a favorite of mine, and I’m sure others “What About Everything.” Barry the lead singer was a real jokester. He had a dry sense of humor, but certainly made you laugh when he would come out of his zone of singing. During one of the songs, a girl in the front row was holding up her cell phone and he nonchalantly grabs it and starts singing into the phone at the same time of the mic. When he had clapping parts or had to concentrate on singing he kept the phone in his pocket.

During the instrumental, he left the stage and later claimed he gave the person on the phone a nice treat as he used the toilet. I think that would be great if he actually did that. The band was tight and I was real impressed with Barry’s vocals and Carter and Terry’s guitar playing. I thought Carter’s skills were put to the best use during the band’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s Bron Y’Aur Stomp. I caught most of the band’s set and left right was they were doing the encore. Peaking at the band’s message board to find out what happened after I left, they came out and did a quiet acoustic version of “Learn to Fly,” “War Was in Color and “The Boxer.” Some of my favorite tunes by the band were played and I’m glad I caught their show. I’ll definitely see them again.